St. George and St. Michael eBook

At the dead of night Caspar and Tom, with four picked
men from the guard, came to lead her away. Worn
out by that time, and with nothing to sustain her
from within, she fancied they were going to kill her,
and giving way utterly, cried and shrieked aloud.
Obdurate however, as gentle, they gave no ear to her
petitions, but bore her through the western gate,
and so to the brick gate in the rampart, placed her
in a carriage behind six horses, and set out with her
for Caerleon, where her mother lived in obscurity.
At her door they set her down, and leaving the carriage
at Usk, returned to Raglan one by one in the night,
mounted on the horses. By the warders who admitted
them they were supposed to be returned from distinct
missions on the king’s business.

Many were the speculations in the castle as to the
fate of mistress Amanda Serafina Fuller, but the common
belief continued to be that she had been carried off
by Satan, body and soul.

Endofvolume II.

START OF VOLUME III

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Newbury.

Early the next morning, after Richard had left the
cottage for Raglan castle, mistress Rees was awaked
by the sound of a heavy blow against her door.
When with difficulty she had opened it, Richard or
his dead body, she knew not which, fell across her
threshold. Like poor Marquis, he had come to
her for help and healing.

When he got out of the quarry, he made for the highroad,
but missing the way the dog had brought him, had some
hard work in reaching it; and long before he arrived—­at
the cottage, what with his wound, his loss of blood,
his double wetting, his sleeplessness after mistress
Watson’s potion, want of food, disappointment
and fatigue, he was in a high fever. The last
mile or two he had walked in delirium, but happily
with the one dominant idea of getting help from mother
Rees. The poor woman was greatly shocked to find
that the teeth of the trap had closed upon her favourite
and mangled him so terribly. A drop or two of
one of her restoratives, however, soon brought him
round so far that he was able to crawl to the chair
on which he had sat the night before, now ages agone
as it seemed, where he now sat shivering and glowing
alternately, until with trembling hands the good woman
had prepared her own bed for him.

‘Thou hast left thy doublet behind thee,’
she said, ’and I warrant me the cake I gave
thee in the pouch thereof! Hadst thou eaten of
that, thou hadst not come to this pass.’

But Richard scarcely heard her voice. His one
mental consciousness was the longing desire to lay
his aching head on the pillow, and end all effort.